MANILA TIMES EDITORIAL: DOING MORE, TALKING LESS
MANILA, OCTOBER 26, 2011 (TIMES) YESTERDAY, President Aquino moved to undo the harm to his image that his original response to the murder of our soldiers caused.
We hope that the murder of Filipino soldiers by MILF ambushers do not reduce his popularity and high approval ratings. His being very popular among our people, the very high performance and satisfaction ratings he gets in SWS and Pulse Asia surveys, are assets of the government and of our Republic.
These are not just psychic assets—though some people, especially people of the political opposition—like to persuade us otherwise.
Wherever his popularity and high approval ratings come from, they help foreigners look positively about our country. We dare believe that the inflow of foreign direct investment would be even less impressive if the President were not as popular and highly-rated by the majority of our people.
And we are certain that the recent willingness of the rich Filipinos to invest in the Philippines, and the continuing eagerness to invest of our Overseas Filipino Workers and other Filipino expatriates in other countries, are a direct result of the good feeling they have about President Aquino because he is extremely popular and well-regarded by the majority.
That is why we pray his original response to the MILF commanders' ambuscade of government soldiers in Basilan does not cause his ratings to drop.
Some thoughtful Filipinos have been distressed by what they perceive as the President's softness on the MILF murderers. After the carnage in Basilan in which 19 AFP soldiers killed, the MILF criminals have killed and wounded more than a dozen more victims, including civilians. Now 35 soldiers and civilians have been killed by MILF murderers (some of whom are concurrently Abu Sayyaf men) in the last 10 days.
No all-out war policy is good
As we said in this space last week the President deserves to be praised for maintaining the "no all-out war" policy and for saying that he wishes the peace talks with the MILF to continue and finally result in a peace agreement.
But his words after the October 21 command conference in Camp Aguinaldo last week embittered some serving and many retired soldiers and officers of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.
They felt that the President's instruction to the officers on the ground and their superiors in Camp Aguinaldo not to pursue the MILF criminals was a betrayal of the murdered soldiers.
The casualties last week and in subsequent MILF attacks these last few days appear to be the worst suffered by our soldiery in the past ten years.
Bitterness among the soldiery is heightened by the perception—albeit wrong—that President Aquino does not feel any need to show his solidarity in grief and anger with the victims and their families.
They have the impression too that he is—when it comes to fighting the enemies of the state, crushing the rebels who want to destroy the Republic—less determined to achieve results than Presidents Gloria Arroyo, Joseph Estrada and Fidel Ramos.
What Brig. Gen Jose Mabanta said after the command conference last Friday was deemed as the President's unwillingness to act against the rebels.
"The instruction," Gen. Mabanta said, "was that operations against the MILF should not be pursued because of the existing ceasefire."
The press reports also conveyed the idea that, on the President's behest, the military will not move to arrest MILF commander Dan Laksaw Asnawi who allegedly led the murderous Basilan attack.
He is not soft at all, it turns out Yesterday's action of the Philippine military disproves the perception of the President's being soft on rebels and murderers. It proves that he will do what is necessary—and just—to punish the MILF murderers.
On his orders the AFP yesterday did its first air strikes against the MILF in three years.
Two OV-10 attack planes bombed a remote village on the edge of Payao town in Zamboanga Sibugay province where some 100 MILF warriors have been holed up since last week, the Philippine Army spokesman said. A combined contingent of 200 police and military commandos are also involved in the operation.
Remember that in the fight to enforce law and order, whether against rebels or plain criminals, the military serves as deputized police forces. The duty of subduing rebellion and arresting criminals is lodged with the Philippine National Police not the AFP.
Lt. Col. Randolph Cabangbang, the spokesman of the AFP West Mindanao Command, said that the air strikes are aimed at the 100 gunmen who are rogue members of the MILF wanted for kidnapping and other criminal activities.
The air raids, Cabangbang stressed, are aimed to subdue MILF rebels who are operating outside the control of the MILF leadership. He needed to make that qualification because the Commander in Chief, President Aquino, does not want it said that the government side is violating the ceasefire agreement with the MILF.
The government air strikes in 2008 were against the two MILF rogue commanders who attacked communities in Mindanao and killed some 400 Muslims and Christians.
President blames AFP for carnage
While yesterday's move against rogue MILF men will decrease the bitterness of the families of the 19 victims in the Basilan ambush, President Aquino's words yesterday will dismay them again. But it will probably impress the MILF leadership.
He blamed the AFP for the Al Barkah ambush and the death of the 19 soldiers and policemen. He also insisted that the killers were Abu Sayyaf, not MILF, warriors.
"We will not pursue all-out war; we will instead pursue all-out justice," he said. "I have instructed intensified operation against all these criminal elements. The mailed fist of the state will be brought to bear upon them so that justice may be served."
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Chief News Editor: Sol Jose Vanzi
© Copyright, 2011 by PHILIPPINE HEADLINE NEWS ONLINE
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